Kenya Hit by Nationwide Power Failure, Electricity Provider Says

May 28 (Bloomberg) -- Kenya, East Africa’s biggest economy,
has been hit by a nationwide power failure caused by faulty
transmission lines, the only electricity distributor said.

“At around 1.30 p.m. this afternoon, the two transmission
lines between the Olkaria geothermal load center and Ndenderu
sub-station near Nairobi tripped, while they were carrying 400
megawatts of electricity,” Kenya Power Ltd. said in an e-mailed
statement from the capital. “Subsequently, the national
interconnected grid and generating system also tripped, causing
a national power outage.”

Engineers are working to get electricity supplied from
neighboring Uganda to the Sondu Miriu power station in western
Kenya, it said.

Kenya, which generates almost half of its power from
hydroelectric plants, has installed capacity of 1,600 megawatts,
with peak power demand of 1,500 megawatts growing at an average
rate of 8 percent a year. Kenya Electricity Generating Co., the
biggest power producer, make 1,232 megawatts, while four private
companies generate the balance.

Kenya Power, received 208,000 customer complaints from
April 9 to April 15 compared with 93,000 over the same period
last year because of heavy rainfall that damaged equipment and
caused two weeks of mass outages.

The company, which adds about 200,000 users annually,
supplies power to about 2.2 million customers in a country of 42
million people. It is seeking to reach about half of the
population by 2020 and make the electricity supply more
reliable.